Covalent Technologies (covalent.com), a developer of open source software solutions for enterprises, announced on Tuesday that the Apache Software Foundation (apache.org) has accepted its ASP.NET module for the Apache Web server. The company said the module is significant because it allows businesses to front ASP.NET applications with the Apache Web server.

"Users of the module are able to deploy and host ASP.NET applications within the proven Apache http Server on Windows platforms," says William Rowe, senior engineer at Covalent and a member of the Apache Software Foundation. "The long term goal of this ASF project is to extend the Apache http Server framework to support loadable modules written expressly for the Apache server with any .NET language, such as C+."

Covalent also announced that it is finalizing plans for open sourcing Covalent Enterprise FTP Server, its proprietary FTP protocol module for Apache. Covalent Enterprise FTP Server is used by enterprises to transfer content securely over the Internet.

The company said the two contributions demonstrate its ongoing commitment to the open source movement.

"It is imperative as a benefactor of the open source community, namely the ASF, that Covalent contributes its resources and technology back to the community," says Mark Brewer, CEO of Covalent. "As more enterprises move to open source based technology solutions, it is increasingly important to have vendors like Covalent provide the technical support and services companies require."